March 26, 2014

Regional insecurity fuels polio in Cameroon

YAOUNDÉ, 26 March 2014 (IRIN) - Three new polio cases have been confirmed in Cameroon over the past two weeks, making it the country’s first outbreak since 2011 and causing alarm among health officials who link the virus’s spread to weak vaccine campaign coverage and displacement following violence in neighbouring northeastern Nigeria and the Central African Republic (CAR).

Cameroon has confirmed seven polio cases since 2013. Just one case is enough to instigate emergency country-wide vaccination measures under the national health policy. It last experienced a polio outbreak in 2009, the strain also identified in Nigeria and Chad.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the virus is at a “very high risk” of crossing borders, and one polio case of the same strain as in Cameroon has just been confirmed in Equatorial Guinea, which saw its last case in 1999.

Cameroon has put in place emergency measures to try to contain the virus, but weak or non-existent monitoring in the cross-border areas with Nigeria and CAR is seriously hampering any national efforts, said Paul Onambelle, a doctor at the Cité Vert district hospital in Yaoundé.

The estimated 100,000 refugees in Cameroon who have fled violence in Nigeria and CAR make control efforts even harder, said Elisse Clarisse Onambany of the National Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), who insists refugee children must be included in any immunization campaign, “which means the supply and resources needed must increase”, she said. Half of the refugee population is made up of children aged 11 or under, according to the health authorities.

Immunization in the Far North Region has been extended to include some of the children in the Nigerian refugee population, but thousands of children are still not being accessed because of insecurity in the border area with Nigeria, families being continually on the move, and difficult terrain, said Maria Enjema, a nurse at Far North district hospital of Maroua.

“Despite continuous effort by the government to reduce the risk of polio in the north, it is very difficult for health workers to reach all the children, particularly those living along the borders with Nigeria because of the high risk [of Boko Haram-related violence] involved,” she told IRIN.

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YAOUNDÉ, 26 March 2014 (IRIN) - Three new polio cases have been confirmed in Cameroon over the past two weeks, making it the country’s first outbreak since 2011 and causing alarm among health officials who link the virus’s spread to weak vaccine campaign coverage and displacement following violence in neighbouring northeastern Nigeria and the Central African Republic (CAR).

Cameroon has confirmed seven polio cases since 2013. Just one case is enough to instigate emergency country-wide vaccination measures under the national health policy. It last experienced a polio outbreak in 2009, the strain also identified in Nigeria and Chad.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the virus is at a “very high risk” of crossing borders, and one polio case of the same strain as in Cameroon has just been confirmed in Equatorial Guinea, which saw its last case in 1999.

Cameroon has put in place emergency measures to try to contain the virus, but weak or non-existent monitoring in the cross-border areas with Nigeria and CAR is seriously hampering any national efforts, said Paul Onambelle, a doctor at the Cité Vert district hospital in Yaoundé.

The estimated 100,000 refugees in Cameroon who have fled violence in Nigeria and CAR make control efforts even harder, said Elisse Clarisse Onambany of the National Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), who insists refugee children must be included in any immunization campaign, “which means the supply and resources needed must increase”, she said. Half of the refugee population is made up of children aged 11 or under, according to the health authorities.

Immunization in the Far North Region has been extended to include some of the children in the Nigerian refugee population, but thousands of children are still not being accessed because of insecurity in the border area with Nigeria, families being continually on the move, and difficult terrain, said Maria Enjema, a nurse at Far North district hospital of Maroua.

“Despite continuous effort by the government to reduce the risk of polio in the north, it is very difficult for health workers to reach all the children, particularly those living along the borders with Nigeria because of the high risk [of Boko Haram-related violence] involved,” she told IRIN.